Dayton Company Advances in Competition

July 23, 2017

Skuld LLC (Tipp, Ohio) announced it was a semifinalist in the 43 North startup competition.

Skuld LLC is focused on innovating in the metalcasting industry. They are offering near net shape steel lost foam castings and offering this technology in stainless and low carbon steels. Skuld also offers thin walled ductile iron going down as thin as 0.070 in., which gives it the ability to use castings to replace stampings.

One of their processes is the additive manufacturing evaporative casting process. In this process, they use 3-D printing to replace expensive tooling by printing a plastic form, which is then vaporized during the casting process to leave behind an exact replica.

“Current metal 3D printing technology has limited alloys and often unpredictable properties because you are essentially microwelding together metal powder,” said Mark DeBruin, chief technical officer. ”Our process allows nearly any metal alloy to be cast and gives standard properties. Yet, it still permits you to eliminate tooling and go from computer drawing directly to obtaining a part.”

Skuld is in the running for a portion of $5 million in startup funding to be awarded. The competition is in its fourth year. It is part of the state of New York’s Buffalo Billions economic development effort focused on growing the economy of Buffalo.

In 2015, there were 11,350 entries which took over 3,000 hours to review. After changing to a stringent demanding data driven entry process, this year there were over five hundred entries and 134 companies advanced to the semifinals.

Skuld was the only semifinalist from Ohio. In 2015, there were 11,350 entries which took over 3,000 hours to review. After changing to a data-driven entry process, this year there were over 500 entries and 134 companies advanced to the semifinals.